I woke up this morning a little late because I couldn’t hear my iPhone alarm. When I got up, the alarm looked like it was ringing; however, I couldn’t hear anything. It has been working fine for years; now suddenly I’m having problems. It started happening around the same time my podcasts started having trouble syncing. I still love my Apple devices; however, for the first time, I’m really questioning the quality of their products. If you have a brand that communicates excellence; you must be diligent in making sure you maintain that level of excellence.

Like it or not, your brand adjusts with the quality of your offering. Legendary management consultant Alan Weiss explains that a brand is a uniform recognition of quality that occurs whether you like it or not (Weiss, 2002, p. 4). He’s absolutely right, so you must constantly assess your brand, as it might not be what you expect. The name of my company—Excellent Management Systems, Inc.—is not arbitrary. I deliver excellent results for my clients—all the time. You don’t have to take my word for it, I have plenty of testimonials that say the same thing.

Here are three steps for maintaining a brand of excellence:

1. Decide and communicate what you’re excellent at. You don’t need to be excellent at everything. I’m not a world class soccer player or an accomplished opera singer. Understand where your excellence is and narrow your communication to just that.

2. Instrument your excellence. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Make sure you clearly define what excellence means and collect and monitor the information with metrics.

3. Control your excellence. Know—in no uncertain terms—when your excellence is waning and have contingency plans in place to get things back on track before they get too far out of control.

I still have full faith and confidence in Apple; they’re miles ahead of anything else that’s out there. However, there’s doubt and caution where there wasn’t before. If you’ve already established a brand of excellence in a certain area, people expect you to maintain it. Don’t let them down.

References:

Weiss, A. (2002). How to establish a unique brand in the consulting profession: Powerful techniques for the successful practitioner. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Excellent Management Systems, Inc.

"The Science Of Success"

John Weathington helps leaders transform organizations.

For over 20 years, John has consulted to people and firms of all sizes including Fortune 500 icons such as Chevron, Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Wells Fargo, PayPal, Cisco, Pacific Gas and Electric, Hitachi, and Visa where he managed the financial services giant's enterprise data strategy--a program consisting of 150 projects over 45 initiatives and 5 major tracks. Visit John at Excellent Management Systems, Inc. for news, updated information, client results, testimonials, free articles, and more.